CSUN President Recalls Encounters With Bias : Discrimination: Blenda Wilson defends affirmative action policies, but takes no stand on a proposed initiative.

In a statement marked by personal reflections on her own encounters with discrimination, Cal State Northridge President Blenda Wilson on Tuesday issued a strong defense of affirmative action policies, but declined to take a stand on a controversial proposed state initiative.

Wilson said her own life experiences--including being denied a job as a young woman because she was black and being counseled in school to become a secretary--have convinced her of the need for affirmative action. If affirmative action has problems, she said, “We should fix it, but not abolish it.”

“At the heart of my conviction about the importance of laws to ensure fairness and inclusion is my own life experience,” Wilson said, recounting a series of instances where she said she had faced racial or gender discrimination over the years.

Wilson remained silent, however, on the proposed California Civil Rights Initiative after promising last month she would take a stand on the issue in response to student demands. The measure proposed for the November state ballot would end state race and gender preference policies.

In an interview Tuesday, Wilson, 54, said she felt it more important to focus on the broader issue of affirmative action than on a measure that has yet to qualify for the state ballot. But she also did not rule out taking a future position, saying, “I think the issue is still ripe for discussion.”

As one of the most prominent African American woman university presidents in the country, Wilson’s statement contributes to the growing national debate on whether affirmative action is still needed in hiring policies and university admissions.

“My career, which has been rich, rewarding and successful by most standards, was made possible by the principles and spirit of affirmative action,” Wilson said in her statement. “Affirmative action enabled me to compete for opportunities which would previously have been closed to me.

“But it did not, and has not, eliminated racism or sexism as a factor in my personal or professional experience,” she said, adding, “No significant social progress has ever been achieved in American society without legal interventions against prejudice and discrimination. Laws which prohibit discrimination are essential, but not sufficient.”

In reciting her experiences, Wilson said that as a high school student in the 1950s, she was denied a summer waitress and cashier job at a motor inn in her New Jersey hometown because the business, which hired her white friends, did not want blacks dealing with customers.

And more recently, Wilson cited a former CSUN faculty member who disparagingly referred to her as “Whoopi Goldberg” in a class. She also cited being denied entry as a Harvard University administrator to an education meeting held at a men’s club, and once had a male subordinate choose to quit rather than work for a woman.

The public perception that affirmative action has unfairly benefited some, Wilson said, “is too frequently fueled by the disingenuousness of those who comply with the letter of the law, but not the spirit, and then claim that they were forced to hire less-qualified minorities or women.”